• bluGill@fedia.io
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    23 hours ago

    There are lots of options. Honest jeweler buyers (likely including your local jewelry store and pawn shows - which might be dishonest in other ways but not that) are notified by the local police when jewelry is stolen and they consult the latest description list when buying and inform the police if anything is on that list.

    So as a criminal your options are: use it yourself (either wear it, or as gifts to friends); sell in a different city where hopefully it isn’t on the list; sell it to someone who doesn’t care that it is stolen; sell to a fence (who will in turn sell it to someone); melt it down for the metals (gold and silver) and jewels.

    Note that buyers of metals are also on the list of those watching for stolen goods. If you bring “a lot” of something to anyone buying metals expect questions. Metals are easy to melt and hard to trace, but if you are selling more than the average person is likely the police will be told to check you out. Often the point of a “fence” is to mix your illegal gold with legal gold and sell to locals jewelers who think everything is legal.

    As other have said jewels are cut.

    You lose a lot of value in all of the above. Jewelry is already way overpriced in general (that is the value is much less than you pay), and hiding your tracks is hard. It is really hard to make this type of crime pay because the police are good at their job.